Feeling more motivated, he dove back into his soul. He approached the engraving, taking it all in, trying to decipher what he could. The sign inside was simple enough—an inverted table with three parallel lines coming out of the tabletop all the way to the bottom of the circle. He didn’t plan on altering the sign in any way, he wouldn’t even know where to start, but, it didn’t mean he couldn’t study it. See if there was anything he could glean from it.

  The good thing about diving into his soul was that he could view it from an outside perspective–like looking at a hologram–or from the inside, as opposed to his body, which he could only get an inside view of.

  Getting a closer look at the engraving, while rotating and turning it around, was all possible, giving him an easier time when trying to make sense of what was in front of him. One reason for that was probably to help with altering or editing it when the time came. Diving into his soul provided a lot of control and freedom that he wouldn’t otherwise have, making it safe to assume that altering the engravings was the soul’s domain.

  But, despite being on the right track, at least from his perspective, he still couldn’t find an entry point nor opening. Nothing stood out, and if there was a place to start, he just couldn’t find it.

  Surrounding the engraving with mana, or trying to push mana into it, has yielded no results either. He might be wrong, and injecting mana into the skill engraving could just be impossible, but it didn’t sit right with him. Skills that weren’t healing related had his mana signature, which was his fancy way of saying it was his mana. For some reason, looking at mana that was his made him immediately recognize it as his own. The light green mana felt different, as if it lacked full ownership, meaning it had a higher degree of freedom, which was why he assumed it was neutral mana with a unique signature. Following the same logic, if other skills had his mana signature, then [Repair] and [Revitalize] should too, the question was how?

  He kept rotating the engraving around, but it looked the same from every angle. Nothing seemed different or out of place no matter how he viewed it, so he tried something. He cast [Repair] on himself, keeping an eye on the engraving, which had started lighting up, its luminosity and brightness unmistakable compared to the rest of his soul.

  Again, nothing stood out, at least to his senses, so he stopped the skill, the luminosity immediately dying down, then he cast it again. Once more, everything seemed the same, the skill starting up, mana being drawn and pushed through the skill trigger, and lastly the healing would start, as evident by his health going up.

  He did so a few more times, keeping as close an eye as he could. He wasn’t crazy, but he could swear certain parts were lighting up and dying down before others.

  The sign in the engraving, in its simplest form, looked like two straight, parallel lines dropping from the northeast and northwest, going down a third of the way through before a horizontal line connected the two, that was why he called it an inverted table. Then, from that table, three parallel lines with equal distance between them continued from the horizontal line, or the tabletop as he called it, all the way to the bottom of the circle.

  It all looked simplistic and meaningless, yet it wasn’t, because he noticed that the horizontal line seemed to light up a fraction of a second before the rest.

  It was almost imperceptible, because it all melded together fairly quickly, that was why he kept turning it on and off, trying to confirm what he thought he saw and that his imagination simply wasn’t playing some trick on him, while also trying to locate the exact point at which the whole process started.

  A few dozen tries had yielded nothing. It was almost instant, and the fact that he could at least narrow it down to the horizontal line felt like a breakthrough all on its own.

  Feeling slightly pumped up, he started examining the line closely. It looked the exact same as the rest of the engraving, nothing special or obvious standing out, so he zoomed in as close as possible, practically walking the thin line now.

  At first, nothing caught his eye, at least until he made it halfway through.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  It was minor, barely noticeable, but it looked like a connection point, as if two pieces of wood were glued together. It didn’t seem flushed out and perfectly even like the rest of the line, but it also wasn’t glaringly obvious. The kind you would only see if you were actively looking for it.

  He scanned the rest of the engraving, walking his way through every line, trying to see whether this was a one-off or a recurring theme. After looking carefully for almost an hour, he felt confident enough that he was on to something, with that spot being the building block for the entire engraving, and where he could attempt to alter or edit the whole thing in the future. Luckily for everyone involved, he didn’t, he just wanted to inject some mana, a fairly simple and safe procedure… probably.

  A few calming breaths later, Matt felt ready to start. It was the moment of truth, and, weirdly enough, it filled him with excitement. He liked exploring, trying new things and new experiences, and this was one of those experiences. One that would hopefully shape his future.

  He began by directing mana towards the fault point, which was the name he decided to go with. His mana didn’t react any differently, refusing to acknowledge the opening, as if nothing was there, so he started slowly pushing the mana into it, but again, nothing happened, prompting him to push harder, be more forceful with it, which finally yielded results.

  Matt noticed a very subtle glimmer which caused him to flinch and stop injecting mana into the engraving. The glimmer immediately died down, everything going back to normal. He breathed out a sigh of relief before forcing mana into the fault point once more, the glimmer returning, but this time he kept going, keeping an eye on the engraving as the glimmer steadily grew in strength.

  He was still wary of the whole ordeal, so he tried to be careful with how much mana he was injecting into the engraving, choosing a slow and steady approach. He was already being forceful with how the mana found its way inside, flooding it would be like asking for trouble. It was a long and arduous process, but he didn’t mind, progress was progress after all, and he wasn’t really the impatient type.

  After a couple of hours, the light blue glimmer had become a glow, which now stilled, emitting a faint, steady light. It wasn’t growing in size or luster any longer, maintaining a fairly bright color even while mana was still being injected into the engraving.

  He considered stopping to test out the skill, see if anything had changed, but it felt off somehow. Everything was exactly the same. The engraving just had a glow to it now that was likely to die down when he stopped infusing mana into it. He had expected a noticeable change in the engraving. A sign that progress was being made, or disaster was ensuing, and a glow just wasn’t it. So, he simply kept going, pushing mana at the same pace he had been.

  It took another hour before Matt started feeling slightly tense. It wasn’t impatience, but the lack of a visual or otherwise change was slowly getting to him. The ‘what ifs’ were getting louder by the second, and doubt was starting to creep into his mind.

  He didn’t want the mana infusion to fail, but a sign that he wasn’t just pouring water into the ocean would definitely put his mind at ease.

  It wasn’t what he had hoped for, but he decided to start slowly pushing more mana in until there was a change of some kind.

  The reason it wasn’t what he had hoped for was that when he had first started, he was only pushing as much mana as he could regenerate naturally, without the use of [Revitalize]. His full attention needed to be on what he was doing, and even though using [Revitalize] was almost second nature to him at this point, it didn’t mean it was automated, far from it. A significant part of his attention had to be dedicated to the resource recovering skill at all times or it would stop, since, at heart, it was a channeling skill, which meant it needed to be channeled to actually work. Now though, after pushing more mana into the engraving, his mana was steadily dropping. Not by much, but enough to force him to use [Revitalize] every few minutes, something he had tried to avoid. Still, it’s been almost four hours since he had begun, and he was getting restless, dangerously so.

  Mana was being expended, meaning something was happening, just not on the surface. The problem was his mind. It had started slipping. Diverting attention from the monotonous task. The task itself was simple enough, mana control was coming naturally to him thanks to [Advanced Mana Control], but it was this simplicity that worried him, hence why he wanted to be fully aware of any minute changes, visible or otherwise. He couldn’t afford something breaking because he was too distracted to react.

  [Repair] was by far his most valuable skill, and he couldn’t risk losing it, even if it meant being blind for the foreseeable future. He had promised himself that he’d survive, thrive and prosper in this new reality he was now a part of, and if it meant doing so as a healer, then [Repair] was simply irreplaceable, especially with what he had in mind, because being a healer was but a start.

  Matt would be the best healer. Then he’d be the best, period. And if people thought healers were weak and useless, then he’d just have to prove them all wrong.

  Every single one of them.